It's just gone live in Australia, and I'm still downloading it, but I thought that I'd start the impressions thread ahead of time. Glancing at my current download speed, it'll be a few hours before I can contribute anything further to the discussion.

I watched flyguygbg stream and while it certainly looks good, it looks like it will take some time to get used to the controls. I'm already disappointed to hear the commentary pretty much untouched. I guess I'll be listening to your podcast while playing games so that's a win for you Andrew

Played it, it was definitely better than Live 16, had fun with the small portion they gave you for The One. Think the crates are a cool idea even though you're not guaranteed something you want unless you buy it 10 times.

Only real issue I got with it, is that I'm not used to their control scheme when it comes to dribbling. Like spinning is different on Live than it is on 2K, it's all just muscle memory messing me up. I also had problems getting open sometimes, but with picks I was able to knockdown shots with relative ease.

Never liked the animations they have for free throws, and the commentary bugs me a little bit, but hey, it's really just nitpicking at that point. I'm just so used to 2K it feels entirely different to want to play another game.

Lit video. The changes you've made to the game speed and sliders are definitely something else over the vanilla settings. Really enjoyed those 16 minutes you had there and the game is look absolutely wonderful, can't wait to try it one day.

On another note, why the hell is Thompson dabbing, lol? Not his style. Actually, that's not the style of most NBA players. Dabbing is more related to football.

Edit: Forgot to ask you because I can't tell by watching a video. Do jumpshots feel different from player to player or did they implement some generic jumpshots at different speeds so they give you the impression they are authentic?

Last edited by I Hate Mondays on Fri Aug 11, 2017 9:41 am, edited 2 times in total.

Lit video. The changes you've made to the game speed and sliders are definitely something else over the vanilla settings. Really enjoyed those 16 minutes you had there and the game is look absolutely wonderful, can't wait to try it one day.

On another note, why the hell is Thompson dabbing, lol? Not his style. Actually, that's not the style of most NBA players. Dabbing is more related to football.

Edit: Forgot to ask you because I can't tell by watching a video. Do jumpshots feel different from player to player or did they implement some generic jumpshots at different speeds so they give you the impression they are authentic?

Kind of feel the same, Players jumpers feel better at 75 game speed. The sliders out of the box to be (at 50) are terrible.

Those player intros look fantastic.Player driving looks good.Sometimes players seem to do layups/dunks that don't suit their style/ability.Movements don't seem that realistic compared to 2k but if it's fun to play i can look past that.

The game feels a lot smoother on the sticks. In NBA Live 14-16, it felt like you were running along angles, and players were not very manoeuvrable, especially on defense. The controls feels a lot more responsive, which is nice. I have mixed feelings about the dribbling controls. I feel a regular crossover dribble should be performed without the sprint modifier, while between-the-legs should be a modifier dribble, but it's still pretty familiar. It's interesting that they adopted the Shot Stick from NBA 2K, and it definitely helps with some advanced moves, which I'm glad to see. Still getting the hang of them, and dribbling in general. If you've played NBA Live before then you'll have an advantage, but there's definitely a learning curve.

There are some nice animations in the game, new moves in the paint and so forth, but there's definitely still awkwardness there. It seems to be the speed of the animations more than anything. There's quite a few animations that look quite good in slow motion, but when they play out in real time, they're too fast, and look very stiff and abrupt as a result. Same thing when chaining certain animations together. If they can clean up the animation speeds, I think it'll really help from a visual standpoint, as well as further enhance the feel of the game.

Lobs seem a bit weird, especially when trying for an alley-oop at the rim. Even with directional passing, it seems to go to the wrong player. Might be me, I'll have to keep practising.

Defense in the paint could still be beefed up a bit, with more physicality. However, there are a lot more altered shots inside. Ambitious layup attempts do miss, and dunks do get blocked. I saw some different block animations, including a very cool looking fingertip block that didn't send the ball flying back. Field goal percentages, shot distribution, and stats in general were pretty on-point. Again, probably a few too many inside shots, but not too bad overall.

Shooting feels good, I do like the Shot Meter this year. A great shooter can knock down shots in the defender's face, no cheap contest logic there. Again, percentages were pretty good, so I don't think it'll be too cheesy. I saw the AI make some smart decisions like passing out of shots and hitting the open man when I made defensive errors. The Shot Meter is pretty quick on free throws, though. Overall, the NBA game feels pretty fun.

Interesting story with The One, a bit different to what 2K is doing. The ESPN presentation is cool. Being able to choose between rewards gives the conversations meaning on top of advancing the story. I like the idea of choosing between getting a crate, or RP/Hype. I wish I didn't have to play through that part of the demo to unlock the rest of it - I've never been a fan of that approach, and it bugged me when NBA Playgrounds did something similar - but I understand it's the big new feature, so they wanted to show it off first. The game felt a little slow from the baseline angle in The Streets, so I'm going to try another angle to see if there are any framerate issues. There does seem to be some framerate issues on the screen transitions, such as the ESPN wipes. They're quite choppy; could just be a bug in the demo. Also, a couple of menus/part of the interface seemed to be off-centre, but I'll have to check my settings.

Biggest gameplay gripe apart from some of the choppier animations would probably be some of the canned moments, like the automatic dribbling animations when you bring the ball up the court. I was hoping they'd get rid of them, as it adds a feeling of being out of control. I also wish they had a metric/imperial option for the measurements. It doesn't feel authentic to be playing an NBA game, and see metric measurements on overlays and so forth, just because I'm in a PAL region. They avoided that for 14 and 15, so I was disappointed that they went back to doing that for 16 and now 18. A minor gripe, and a region-specific one, but still. It detracts from what is otherwise really good presentation.

Online felt a bit sluggish, which was surprising. I didn't have a very good experience there. The best experience was probably the Play Now game between the Cavs and Warriors, which I guess bodes well for an NBA title. Playing single player in The Streets was OK, though. I noticed I had to call for the pass a lot, so the teammate AI could probably use some work in terms of making things happen and not standing around as much. That's not to say they weren't at all aggressive, but there were times when they weren't making the quick pass.

The Baseline camera angle, intended to maximise court vision in player lock mode, is zoomed in a bit too much. I haven't tried the other angles for The Streets yet. It needs to be zoomed out, and focus on your player, so you don't lose them. It's more important than your camera follows you rather than the ball in player locked gameplay, at least in my opinion. Nice to see some options for locking the view though, so that it always faces the opposing basket if you want. I'll have to play around a bit more with those settings.

I've recorded some footage which I'll upload as soon as I can. Just got to cut it down to the gameplay stuff. I'll also post a bunch of screenshots as soon as possible.

Overall, it does feel like a significant improvement on NBA Live 16 in some key areas. There's still some stuff to work out in regards to the animation speeds, because when some of them are slowed down, they definitely look better. Biggest technical issues were probably with the framerates on the wipes, and possibly from the Baseline camera angle in The Streets. I haven't messed around with sliders yet, but I felt the default ones weren't too bad in many respects, which is promising. I'm a bit concerned about the sluggishness of online, but other stuff felt pretty good, with the NBA gameplay being the best in my opinion. For the stuff that I'm interested in, it felt promising.

It definitely looks fun to play. Even I got excited just watching when it was close in the 4th. Celebrations seemed a bit much early on. Well, maybe a tad bit too frequent but they were a bit over the top. reminded me of the ones from NBA playgrounds.

I liked the turnover where Love got the steal. it showed the speed factor and you could catch up to him with faster players which could lead to some nice chase down blocks?Passing was nice and quick and you could swing the ball to find an open jumper which was what made Live 10 so much fun.

"Biggest gameplay gripe apart from some of the choppier animations would probably be some of the canned moments, like the automatic dribbling animations when you bring the ball up the court. I was hoping they'd get rid of them, as it adds a feeling of being out of control."

Thanks for pointing that out Andrew. I hated this in 16 and I'm annoyed it's still in 18. I'm with you as far as the game feeling smoother as it should after a 2 year break. I did encounter and recorded via Xbox some clipping that aren't just visual annoyances but actual game changing clipping like a pass I made to a player cutting to the basket and the ball went through a defender. Also some players sliding like when I made a pass to Davis under the basket and he and Cousins slid below the basket before Davis caught the pass. Those sort of problems to me are major.

It's good that the game is $39.99 as long as your preorder. I don't feel this game is worth $60 but at the preorder price point, I think I can enjoy the game enough until Live 19. I'll still be picking up 2K18 on pc this year. I think CDKeys has it for $31.99.

Played through that first tutorial before heading to work. I just blew through it not trying to play for real but just trying to clear all the prompts to get to the real stuff. The one I didn't get was the double tapping d pad to focus on the star player. I tapped that like crazy on both offense and defense and it didn't work.

Like I said, I didn't try to play it but the one thing I did notice was that sometimes there was a delay in shooting as the player gathers for the shot so my timing was a bit off. That will take some getting used to. I did get some good ball movement and post play does seem a bit improved over previous games

Davis did get a block on the baseline and the ball bounced off the force field and off the ground and hit him in the face on the close up so I did notice him reacting to that which I thought was cool

PrecursorI haven’t played NBA Live since 2008. I didn’t catch any of the 2010-2016 era, other than short videos on youtube to laugh at. So i have no feel for what NBALive has been like to play the past few years. My impressions are coming from a perspective of playing 2k for the past decade.

I used to have Live '99 on Playstation that i played occasionally, but it was really NBA Live 2001 on PC that sparked my obsessive love for NBA and would ultimately become my entry into following the NBA world full-time. Now here we are in 2017 with players with stretchmarks. My point is, although i jumped onto the 2k bandwagon a decade ago i have a soft spot for NBALive and i'd love nothing more than for them to consistently produce a quality product to compete with 2K.

Ok now that that's out the way, here's my "stream of consciousness" style first impressions...

Opening Pro-AM gameLooks very nice. Very pretty. Accurate proportions. Looks like a real life game….until players start moving around.From within the first minute you see enough “slightly off” looking movements for the suspension of disbelief/realism element to dissolve a bit from the get go, so your brain instantly turns into “ok, this is more of an arcade thing than a sim”, which is fine. So that’s the perspective i’m going to enjoy the game from. There's nothing wrong with that, just an observation.It's things like: The transition between animations is a bit clunky (relative to 2k anyway). Ball physics and net physics are a bit off. Something looks a bit off about a player passing to another player (when the player releases the ball/pass it's sorta clunky. The ball momentum doesn't look right or something). Players float in weird ways sometimes. I.e. once they’re in the air their momentum can go in unnatural ways. Nothing major or horrible, but just enough to give the impression that it's obviously a video game and not a real game.Players constantly appear like they’re carelessly/openly dribbling the ball RIGHT in the defender's reach. They don’t protect the ball at all. If it were real life they would get stripped straight away. Stuff like that. But i don’t want to give the wrong impression, it’s not bad at all. There are good movements too (like driving). I’m just explaining which things make my brain perceive it in an arcade way. You gotta use your imagination a little more to fill the holes which, to be honest, is an experience i kinda miss from the old games!

I don’t know how to play lol. This will take some getting used to.

I like on ball defending. I feel like staying in front of my man is within my control, unlike 2k.

Damn, blocks are mean spirited in this, lol. It’s like players are massive jerks about protecting the rim, haha. So mean. I like it.

It looks cool when players drive on defenders. And the control of it (on both sides of the ball) feels right too. Maybe the most pleasing element of gameplay so far, for both offense and defense.

There’s a strange familiarity to this game that i remember feeling when i used to play NBA Live back in the day. There’s a common thread that ties the gameplay to the old school games from 2005-2008 era but i can’t quite put my finger on it. Something to do with the way the A.I. maybe. The style of human decision making is similar. Or something.

The One / MyPlayer thingWhy do they ask you to choose your player’s height in centermetres and KG's lol. I'm Australian and even I had to google a height/weight converter.

This is fun. God it feels good to play a basketball game that’s different to 2k. This is all about the arcade fun.

Did i just see a player dab? Aw that’s lame.

My MyPlayer (is that what they're called in NBALive?) is dominating against NBA pros in the Drew league lol. Things seem to be less about having high attributes and more about gaming. And positioning. I scored 18 pts (out of 21) with a 75ish rated player against players like LeBron, Harden, Paul George, etc. All i had to do was drive and then dunk when close enough. Might have something to do with the difficulty setting though.

Hard to stop any player from finishing inside (human or CPU) once they get an opportunity to dunk or layup in the paint. And sometimes players seem to do layups/dunks that don't suit their style/ability/body. I.e. Kevin Love does some overly acrobatic things.

I feel like it’s kinda silly that as you move up through MyPlayer and upgrading your skills, your animations constantly change along with it. It's like their muscle memory that they've been building all their life gets re-wired and they play like a different player every 2 or 3 games haha. Not realistic.But i spose this is more of an arcade thing. So, oh well.

THE HALFTIME SHOW IN NBA LIVE 18 IS AWESOME HOLY SHIT! Take note 2k. Love how it rotates through the different segments quickly, and has a back catalog of highlights to access. Absolutely love it.

Driving layups and dunks are a verrrrry high percentage shot. Especially with wings. In my first game GSW shot 60% and CLE shot 56%. On All-star. Default sliders

I like the way you can string moves together. For as real as 2K looks, it’s hard to “stay in the moment” with it. It’s more like you just fire off long animations the whole time. But in this you can stay "present" and string things together, which is satisfying when you get a nice highlight from it. That's good for immersion and fun.

ConclusionI still need to play more before making any lasting judgements. But first impression is that although the gameplay is still a bit bare bones relative to 2K, the game is fun and looks good. Ultimately, the decider for whether i buy the game or not will be based on what their franchise/dynasty/season/whateveritscallednow mode is like. If they can offer me an in-depth NBA landscape in that mode then i'm in.

After playing some Cavs v. Warriors, I'm shocked that the rosters are as incomplete as they are. Cedi Osman is signed to the cavs this year and EA has his face portrait as Josh McRoberts and his player model as Gilbert Arenas. This is a current NBA player on an NBA team and they botched it. Also Jordan Bell doesn't have a player face portrait. One of my biggest issues with madden is their failure to keep their rosters updated (no player portraits, missing players, etc.) and it looks like EA kept that approach in Live. Just unfortunate it's not available on PC in hopes of getting that modded in.

Mostly it just boggles my mind that they took a year off and it still feels unpolished.

Nick wrote:Why do they ask you to choose your player’s height in centermetres and KG's lol. I'm Australian and even I had to google a height/weight converter.

Yeah, that still bugs me as well. Suppose it comes down to the region, but they didn't do that in 14 and 15, only going back to it in 16 (it was that way in 09 and 10 as well). Even though I obviously use the metric system in most cases, when it comes to basketball, I do think in terms of imperial. It's also more authentic for the presentation.

I just played for a couple hours, I'm going to list my pros and cons below. However, I want to start off by saying its certainly an improvement over Live 16.

Pros:

- Animations at the hoop are much improved. Some of the adjustments with contact look awesome and realistic. The ball also doesn't sail high in the air awkwardly when it shouldn't (well, a small bit of it still exists, but nothing compared to Live 16)

- Blocking animations are awesome (I trapped the ball on the glass with 2 hands with Draymond Green, and it looked and felt awesome). Blocks with authority also exist, and they feel powerful.

- The post has improved a bit, fadeaways out of the post feel a little better. Spinning into the lane from the post feels a bit better. There will be cons on this as well, see below.

- Defense: I'm impressed overall with the defense, the players seem aware of the surroundings on the floor. I like the physical nature of the game.

- Graphics and atmosphere: Yes, the faces are pretty off sometimes, but the court (with the reflections, lighting) looks awesome, the players look good out there as well. No complaints graphics wise from me.

Cons:

- Reactiveness: Just not on par with 2k, slight delay when I hit a button kills the feeling sometimes. It's not controller lag either, because I don't have it with 2k or Madden

- Passing: Similar to 2k, floaty passes happen a bit often, the ball moves really strange through the air sometimes. The players also do strange body contortions for passes when they don't need to, creating an uneccesary interuption in flow. Lobs are hit or miss, I could be on a 2 on 1 with one of my teammates running right next to me, and I would double tap Y, and my other teammate who was about 15ft further back coming in from the 3 point line would somehow be the recipiant, and the ball would just sail out of bounds or into nowhere land. Bounce passes are slower than they should be a lot of the time.

- Post game: While it has slight improvements, it's still common to see really strange high arcing flicks from the post, of robotic moves that hurt the realism of the game.

- Dribbling: One of my gripes with Live 16 was "small dribbles" or "small moves". This game suffers from the same issue. The stick is not as reactive as I would like for starters, but also... I'd like to feel my crossover with an elite dribbler, I'd like to feel a dribble spin move, a hesitation, a step back. I'd like to feel space being created. The dribbling misses the mark big time here, I feel like I'm doing small dribbles in order to just find slight room to get my defender on my side so he rides me to the hoop.

- Animations: Catch and shoots feel awkward and clunky a lot of the time, as the shooter will catch the ball and make a robotic move to get into his shooting animation. It makes catch and shoots a little cringe to watch and do, and impacts your flow when releasing your shot. Driving to the hoop has been much improved, but again... the flow is hurt by clunky/robotic switching between animations. Free throw animations sometimes resemble NBA in the zone 2, as they sometimes have two or three animations that lead to the release, once again leading to less flow and a more robotic release.

- Game Speed: Something is off, the ball traveling through the air looks odd sometimes, almost like a beach ball feel. The players animations sometimes look hurried, or sometimes methodical. Andrew mentioned this above, hopefully it's something fixed before release.

Overall, it's an improvement over 16. I hope they make tweaks to some of the things I mention above. Do you guys agree with this analysis overall?

"I don't know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody - somewhere - was practicing more than me." - Larry Bird

I had similar issues. I ended up restarting my phone and finally got an attempt to work. Sorry I can't be more helpful, basically I just kept trying and waiting, and eventually had a successful render. I didn't do anything special or different that time that I could recommend trying.

One thing that was an issue in 16 was the amount of cheesy layups/post hooks that go in. I was playing live run once and some dude made a off balance fading floater that landed on the top of the backboard and rolled in. It's not good when you got wing shooters making layups that someone inside should be doing as their specialty. Also sucks that you can't keep playing once you hit LvL 20, as I was still having fun with the live run stuff. There is noticeable lag though

Played quite a bit of this when I got home. Played through The Rise single player mode and had some fun. There's parts of the game that are really good. I like the driving animations and block animations. Those were done well. I got drafted to Dallas at #9. The Streets part of the game was decent. I'm able to be a bit more forgiving there.

Then I played Play Now and had a hard time adjusting for some reason. I mean, it's not terrible, but I'm not really having any fun playing it either.

Plus I maxed out my guy so I'm locked out of Live Run now which is the best part. Lag online was a bit worse than it was for the Live 16 demo. Made it a bit difficult to play defense and shoot, perfect for my 3 and D player.

Overall, if my memory serves me right, this demo gameplay wise played much like Live 16 demo with better animations and some Stephen A Smith videos.

So now I'm basically in the same predicament as I was in after playing the Live 16 demo: do I like Live Run enough to buy the game? If I do, I better get it at $40 which makes it easier to buy than to get myself to pay 60 for this game. Also, not sure how much more you will get in The One when you jump to the league.

Graphics wise, the heads on the players look a little big. Take a look at a lebron close up when you have a chance.

Animations wise, the shoulders and head are so stiff, that's part of the problem with how some of the animations look. I know we talked about it before, but you notice it even more when you are playing.

"I don't know if I practiced more than anybody, but I sure practiced enough. I still wonder if somebody - somewhere - was practicing more than me." - Larry Bird

Assuming you mean the live events right now where you beat a YTuber's team for a special crate, you can always run with at least 1 friend. Definitely came across some smart or stupid people. I understand layups are cheesy as hell but I don't need some dude running into the paint every game just to get stopped constantly by a big man